ALONGSIDE Eurocrats, straight bananas and anyone who opposes Brexit, Britain's tabloid press has found something new to hate this year: British Airways (BA). Britain’s flag carrier has been criticised for cutting legroom in economy, axeing free food and drink on short-haul flights and—horror of horror—the amuse bouche that used to be served before dinner in first class. To save face, this week BA's chief executive, Alex Cruz, who has come under sustained criticism for the cuts to service quality, announced that the carrier would be tarting up its offer. This would include more free meals, better wi-fi and 72 new planes. "We're bringing back the glory days", Mr Cruz proudly crowed. But not all of the improvements may be as good for frequent flyers as he advertised.Among the changes planned

WHEN staff at the Louvre in Paris head to the bathroom, the toilet lid opens as they approach, a warm seat heats their derrières, and, once done, their nether regions are washed and dried precisely. Selling the equipment is a coup for Toto, Japan’s biggest producer of “shower toilets”.Toto and its rival Lixil carve up the Japanese market for fancy, multi-function loos between them. At home they have market shares of 60% and 30% respectively, according to Nomura Securities, a brokerage. Yet they have struggled to win foreign bottoms over to luxuries enjoyed in Japan for many decades.Today 26% of Toto’s and 30% of Lixil’s revenues come from abroad (much of it from products other than shower toilets). The Japanese market is profitable, but their loos are already ubiquitous there (including in

In the eye of a stormTHE titans of media in America have decided this is an opportune moment to join together in mega-mergers, the better to take on the giants of Silicon Valley. The problem for them is that the Department of Justice (DoJ), and President Donald Trump himself, are less keen.On November 8th reports surfaced that the DoJ is preparing to block a proposed $109bn acquisition by AT&T of Time Warner, owner of CNN, HBO and the Warner Brothers film studio—a deal that was announced a year ago and which had been expected to win approval by the end of 2017. The DoJ have reportedly told AT&T executives that to get the merger through they would have to sell off assets: either Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting division, including CNN, which Mr Trump has repeatedly attacked as “fake news”,

“I’M GONNA make a $hit t$n of money on August 2nd on the Stox.com ICO.” Written in July on Instagram, these words made Floyd Mayweather, a boxer, the first big celebrity to endorse an “initial coin offering”, a form of crowdfunding that issues cryptographic coins, or “tokens”. Stox, an online prediction market, went on to raise more than $30m, some of which seems to have gone directly into Mr Mayweather’s pocket. Other VIPs, including Paris Hilton, a socialite, followed suit and endorsed ICOs. But this source of easy cash may now be drying up: on November 1st America’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) warned that such promotions may be unlawful, if celebrities fail to disclose what they receive in return.The endorsements and the SEC’s attempt to rein them in are the latest episodes

IN RECENT months Google and Facebook have made changes that may escape the notice of most of their billions of users, but not of news organisations. Facebook began displaying the logos of publishers in some of its posts, so readers can identify the news source. And Google for the first time gave publishers the ability to control how many times the search engine’s users can visit news sites free of charge. Both will directly help papers to sell subscriptions.To critics of the social-media giants, that might look like wolves offering to help the sheep while still feasting on the herd. The business of both Facebook and Alphabet, parent of Google and YouTube, is to occupy people’s time and attention with their free services and content, and to sell ads against those eyeballs. For them, quality

Bosch mobilisesBOSCH is everywhere. It has 440 subsidiaries and employs 400,000 people in 60 countries. Its technology opens London’s Tower Bridge and closes packets of crisps and biscuits in factories from India to Mexico. Analysts call it a car-parts maker: it is the world’s largest, making everything from fuel-injection pumps to windscreen wipers. Consumers know it for white goods and power tools synonymous with “Made in Germany” solidity.The company itself prefers to be called a “supplier of technology and services”, or “the IoT [internet-of-things] company”. On a hill overlooking Stuttgart, robotic lawnmowers whizz around its headquarters and a window displays dishwashers and blenders. Inside are signs of a company in transition: posters call on staff to rip off ties, celebrate “error

THIS week was uncomfortable for a host of well-heeled figures. In the frame were U2’s Bono, America’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, as well as some of the world’s most valuable companies, including Apple and Nike. All these, and many more, feature in the “Paradise Papers”, a trove of more than 13m documents, many of them stolen from Appleby, a leading offshore law firm. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its 95 press partners, including the BBC and the New York Times, began publishing stories based on the papers on November 5th. Dozens appeared this week, with more to follow after The Economist went to press.The ICIJ’s last big splash, the Panama Papers in April 2016, shed light on some of the darkest corners of offshore f

OCCASIONALLY a business idea emerges that is so simple you cannot believe it works. Consider the five founders of 3G Capital, an investment firm. Warren Buffett co-invests with them and calls them “among the best businessmen in the world”. They use debt to buy consumer-product firms, then they revamp their brands and slash costs. In total, since 1997, they have launched $470bn of deals, through 3G Capital or earlier entities (for simplicity this article lumps these all together and calls them “3G”). That makes 3G the second most acquisitive organisation in modern history. It sells every Budweiser slurped, Whopper burger munched and bottle of Heinz ketchup squirted on the planet.Yet despite its superb long-term record, 3G is losing steam. In the past two years its total portfolio has lagged